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The Crystal Star (Star Wars Universe)

3.07 of 5 stars 3.07 · rating details · 3,908 ratings · 79 reviews

Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Vonda N. McIntyre continues the bestselling Star Wars saga as the ultimate space adventure unfolds in The Crystal Star.

Princess Leia's children have been kidnapped. Along with Chewbacca and Artoo-Detoo, she follows the kidnappers' trail to a disabled refugee ship, from which children are also missing. Here she learns of a powerful Imper...more

Mass Market Paperback, 448 pages

Published December 1995 by Spectra (first published November 1st 1994)

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Jan 24, 2013 ビル rated it 1 of 5 stars

"This isn't the Star Wars you're looking for."

This book should be used as a guide for "How to do Star Wars Wrong". All the characters we've come to know and love were portrayed as anything but. It truly felt as if the author wrote a separate sci-fi/space opera story and just replaced the names with Star Wars characters.

As a teen who didn't like reading books, I was captivated by the Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, which I read entirely in a week and a half. That was completely unheard of for me...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Sebastien rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: personne ou gros fan de Star Wars

Recommended to Sebastien by: Dave Adams

Shelves: star-wars

Suite à ma première lecture d'un roman en anglais j'ai constaté que si je voulais avoir plus de roman de la Guerre des Étoiles, je devais m'efforcer de lire en anglais. Donc j'ai lâché un coup de fils à mon amis Dave Adams et il me dit qu'il avait fini de lire un des roman de Star Wars qu'il avait commander du SC-Fiction Book Club. Je pars en courant le rejoindre (il restait près de chez moi) et je met la main sur mon prochain roman post-trilogie.

L'histoire se passe quasiment 20 ans après le ret...more

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Jul 23, 2010 Crystal Starr Light rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-at-your-own-risk, star-wars, so-bad-it-s-good

You know something is wrong when Leia says "Piloting was more fun than being a Jedi!"
Oh no! Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin have been kidnapped on Munto Codru, while their mother, Leia, is touring the more peaceful worlds of the New Republic. The official on Munto Codru are convinced it is a "normal" kidnapping, but Leia thinks otherwise and leaves with Chewie and Artoo to find her children. Meanwhile, Han and Luke go vacationing to Crseih Station in pursuit of Jedi.
NOTE: This is a review based on the...more You know something is wrong when Leia says "Piloting was more fun than being a Jedi!"
Oh no! Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin have been kidnapped on Munto Codru, while their mother, Leia, is touring the more peaceful worlds of the New Republic. The official on Munto Codru are convinced it is a "normal" kidnapping, but Leia thinks otherwise and leaves with Chewie and Artoo to find her children. Meanwhile, Han and Luke go vacationing to Crseih Station in pursuit of Jedi.
NOTE: This is a review based on the audio book and what I remember from reading the actual novel years ago.

I Liked:
The biggest redeeming factor of this book and one of the biggest reasons I rated it two stars is the rising importance of Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin. For the first time, we get to see through Jaina's eyes, and McIntyre absolutely nails this portrayal. All the children act their age, speak their age, and think their age. I enjoyed their portions of the book, and back when I read it when I was a teen, that was the reason I liked this book enough to devise my internet moniker (get it? Crystal Star(r Light)?).
The second biggest factor was Leia behaving like a mother. In the Jedi Academy trilogy, Leia was content to dump her children where ever and on whomever was available, whether it was Chewie, Winter, Ackbar, or Jedi students she didn't even know. Knowing how she was raised, I found this unbelievable and disturbing. Here, Leia runs for her children and when they aren't there, she pretty much immediately packs up to leave after them. Now THAT'S the mother I was thinking she would be!
Also, there were a few touching scenes with Han mentioning his fear his children would turn to the Dark Side (oh, boy, that is sure touching after Legacy, isn't it?) and if they died, and I did like the inclusion of a former love for Han, Xaverri.

I Didn't Like:
With the exception of a few books (the Thrawn Trilogy being the foremost), it seems to me most of the books of the Bantam/early 90's era portrayed our Big Three (Han, Luke and Leia) way, way out of character. This book is no different. Han goes into the virtues of flirting, even though he's been married to Leia for over six years. A bit early for the seven-year-itch or is he experiencing an early mid-life crisis? I don't know, but I still have trouble with his return to the smuggler of A New Hope (gambling, drinking, carousing at night-it seems like all these books want him to return to being a rogue and forget the fact he was a respected general). Luke acts like he has constipation all the time. I know this was "because of the crystal star's resonating with the Force" or "because Callista left him" (only, didn't he reconcile with her in Planet of Twilight), but can anyone else say: "Been there, done that"? How many planets/aliens/weird events must Luke encounter that *surprise surprise* rip away his Force abilities, leaving him a whining baby that is easily swayed to join Waru? And Leia, while far more motherly than earlier portrayed, drove me nuts. Not only was her code-name absolutely goofy sounding (every time the narrator said her fake name, all I could think of was that song by Jan and Dean, Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Li-Linda, only there, it was cute and not childish sounding), not only did she give the absolute most ridiculous name to a ship ("Alderaan"? Made me think she was talking about a planet, which has some funny connotations, to be sure), but Leia also at one points says Luke chided her on learning how to pilot instead of being a Jedi and she chose piloting because "It was more fun." Wow, how mature!!
As for the other new characters: Well, they aren't much better. Firstly, it was extremely odd to hear "Werewolves" (spelled wyrwolves) in a Star Wars novel. And centaurs was kinda weird. I didn't hate those concepts too much, though I kept feeling like there was something more about them that I wasn't hearing.
Hethrir is a completely stereotypical bad guy, plum out of a children's book, and his wife, Rillao, is the stereotypical counterpart to him. Why can't authors make a little bit more...oh, I don't know, maybe realistic heroes and villains? Hethrir and Rillao were both trained by Vader, but of COURSE, Rillao is a healer and opposed to violence and of COURSE Hethrir embraces the Empire and kills without a second thought. It was so stereotyped, I could gag. And their son, Tigris! BAH! He reminded me too much of Dev Sibwarra, only Dev was at least half decent (being brain washed directly). Tigris is just plain stupid. Oh, and his daddy is so mean and bad, that he lies to him about his mom and being able to use the Force! Did you know Hethrir is the Bad GuyTM?
As for the plot, well, I enjoyed Leia's search for her kids far more than another weird vacation for Han and Luke. Why do these guys always go on vacations to the most out of the way, most disgusting, most undesirable places in the world? That would be like me saying, "Oh, I want to go vacation in a pig sty!" Why don't they go somewhere decent? And why bother looking for Jedi in a place that has a population of like a thousand? Seems to make more sense to go to the bigger worlds to find Jedi potentials instead of the smaller ones, but then, we wouldn't have the "wonderful" plot of Waru, a creature that must have been a Star Trek reject. I swear, I've not seen many Star Trek episodes, but I am pretty sure this one would fit. An unknown, multi-dimensional creature that deceives its followers into feeding it and is destroyed in the end? Call up Gene Roddenberry now!

Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
At least three instances of d***.
Han lauds the virtues of flirting, Leia makes a comment that could be seen as sexual to Rillao, Luke questions Han's fidelity.
A young centaur fears her horns will be cut off and she will die. Chewie is injured when the children are kidnapped. Hethrir force chokes someone.

Overall:
While I still greatly enjoyed reading about Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin, the rest of the book did not have the feel of Star Wars. Unless you want to see how the Solo children started out or are trying to read all the novels, pass on this one. (less)

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Jun 28, 2010 Guy Byars rated it 1 of 5 stars

I love Star Wars books. They're somewhat of a guilty pleasure, for me the extended universe is a fun little getaway place where something fun is always happening.

Except in The Crystal Star. Good Lord, this book is terrible. Do you remember Q from Star Trek? The guy who could travel through space/time with a thought and possessed omnipotent, omniscient power? Well, imagine a Star Wars version of Q that is an amorphous stinky blob with a series of severe mental handicaps.

Seriously. Except it is wo...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Mark Oppenlander rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, star-wars

This is a disappointing entry in the Expanded Universe canon. Vonda McIntyre is a respected sci-fi writer who has won both Hugo and Nebula awards. I have enjoyed some of her earlier Star Trek novelizations. So how she produced this sub-par Star Wars book is a bit of a mystery.

I won't bother you much with the plot except to say that it deals with some pretty stale Star Wars tropes, including the kidnapping of the Solo children (again), the attempt by a former Imperial official, now in hiding (how...more This is a disappointing entry in the Expanded Universe canon. Vonda McIntyre is a respected sci-fi writer who has won both Hugo and Nebula awards. I have enjoyed some of her earlier Star Trek novelizations. So how she produced this sub-par Star Wars book is a bit of a mystery.

I won't bother you much with the plot except to say that it deals with some pretty stale Star Wars tropes, including the kidnapping of the Solo children (again), the attempt by a former Imperial official, now in hiding (how many of these guys are there?) to revive the Empire once more and the search for yet more lost Jedi. Seriously? * yawn *

But the clichéd plot elements aren't really the problem. The issue here is execution. The writing is poor, the characters are handled inadequately and the stylistic choices are pretty questionable.

To wit: I don't need the author of an EU novel to give me Shakespeare. But there was a point in reading this book at which I began to believe that McIntyre could only write subject-verb, subject-verb, subject-verb. There was virtually no variety in sentence length or construction. Yikes! Second, it is not clear to me that McIntrye "gets" these characters. I can't say much about this without providing spoilers, but suffice it to say that several major characters take actions that don't seem completely commensurate with their character traits in the films or other EU books. Finally, the stylistic choices are very strange. When we cut away to the scenes of the children who have been kidnapped, McIntyre changes her writing style. She seems to be attempting to write from the children's point of view without actually moving to first-person. This attempt just seems to create an artificial, strained and juvenile feeling to these scenes. It does not add any value. My advice would have been to stick with third-person omniscient and let the third person remain an adult. And if you're going to use first-person narrative, go all the way. This in-between voice (third person juvenile) didn't work.

All of these complaints, and I haven't even had time to mention the rubber science in this book (e.g. an anti-Force that sucks power from the Force or a freezing star, etc.) But you get the point already. This book just isn't very good. Suffice it to say that this one is for the die-hard completists only.(less)

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May 06, 2013 Stephen Shores rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the most unusual Star Wars novels I've read...but I can't quite pinpoint why I feel that way. It hits the ground running and maintains a decent pace throughout.

The children of Han and Leia step to the forefront here, which I was honestly dreading because I anticipated that their dialogue and actions would be cheesy and unrealistic, but as a father, I found their segments not only realistic but enjoyable. I felt the grief and the joy of Han and Leia as they were separated from and...more This is one of the most unusual Star Wars novels I've read...but I can't quite pinpoint why I feel that way. It hits the ground running and maintains a decent pace throughout.

The children of Han and Leia step to the forefront here, which I was honestly dreading because I anticipated that their dialogue and actions would be cheesy and unrealistic, but as a father, I found their segments not only realistic but enjoyable. I felt the grief and the joy of Han and Leia as they were separated from and reunited with their children to be the same I would experience if I were in the same situation.

Other good points: Threepio doesn't seem as annoying as usual. Han seems to be fleshed out a little more in this book, as he balances the responsibilities of being a general of the New Republic and a new father with the desire to be the same old smuggler we love. I gained a newfound respect for Han, as while I've never been a smuggler with a cool starship, the 'old me' still wants to play video games and eat junk food all day instead of being a responsible and good husband and father. We also meet a handful of interesting new alien species that I wish other EU authors had integrated into their novels.

Complaints: I'm getting a little tired of Luke being so whiny. Man up, Luke (or maybe I should say 'Jedi up'). You're the son of Darth Vader, now start kicking some ass and do more awesome things with that lightsaber instead of using it as a glorified glowstick (not kidding on that last one). I'm also getting tired of Leia sabotaging her own Jedi training, but at least here she serves as a powerful, independent protagonist instead of a 'damsel in distress'.

As I mentioned, this Star Wars novel has a very different feel (to me), like the author had vast experience with other science-fiction series like Star Trek:TNG and DS9 and decided to pull some interesting ideas from those other series into the Star Wars series. I thought that refreshing, and after I was midway through the first fourth of the book, I couldn't put it down.(less)

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May 04, 2012 Mersini rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: star-wars, owned-books

First off, I'm not entirely sure this book warrants a review. Star Wars books are the type of book you read entirely for enjoyment, knowing that they're going to be mediocre at best.

Secondly, it's May the 4th today, also known as Star Wars day, so I couldn't resist putting that out there and the fact I finished this book today. May the Force be with you.

But just in case you wanted some information about this book, well, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't the best either, but it was interesting to se...more

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Nov 28, 2009 Paul Phelan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: star-wars

It is my opinion that the time when this book was published, was a black era for the Star Wars novels line. From the high standards set by Timothy Zahn, to the very decent Kevin J. Anderson and X-Wing novels of the time, it was most probable that the ineveitable dip in quality would happen.

The book suffers from the fact that there is little to no character development within its pages. When this is coupled with the fact a lot of the major players are written out of character, a good compelling...more

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Dec 04, 2011 Alanna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: november-6-2011-and-on

I love Star Wars, and am currently reading through the entire collection books, and every now and then, I read some that seem to take forever to get through. When reading a book, especially a Star Wars book, you know something is wrong.
All the characters are ill written, and seem like completely different people. There is a golden shelled thing that is implied to be a demon. What is up with that? There are somethings that just DON'T mesh with Star Wars, and demons (along with the zombie atrocity...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Nick rated it 1 of 5 stars

Many others have spelled out just how terrible this book is. Everyone is completely out of character and the plot, as much as it can be said to have a plot, feels like something from a completely different universe.

If you are intent on reading most of the Expanded Universe books, you can safely skip this one. Nothing happens to the characters in any meaningful way, and the events are pretty much ignored by the future books. Though there is one book, I think in the New Jedi Order set, that makes...more

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Sep 09, 2009 Dan marked it as read-but-do-not-remember

Shelves: schlock-i-grudgingly-admit-i-read

I vaguely remember that in this book there is some sort of 'crystalizing star' or some other stupid crap like that. And it was messing with the fabric of space time. As if traveling at faster than light speed and ignoring relativity didn't already show that there is no such thing like a realistic space-time in star wars.

Luke Skywalker had to stop this crystalizing star from destroying the entire universe. The whole thing felt much more "Star Trek" than "Star Wars."

This was the first book that ca...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Matthew Bowers rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, star-wars

I so wanted to like this book. Apart from wanting to like EVERY book I read, I knew that this was perhaps the most loathed book in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and part of me wanted to provide a contrarian opinion.

Alas, I cannot. Written with the sophistication and the vocabulary of a fifth grader, and an understanding of plot and sentence structure that Kevin J. Anderson or those Left Behind guys would sneer at, this is one of the worst-written books I've read in a long time, hands down. Th...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Bradley rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: star-wars

Bad Luke and Han characterisations. Leia's kids kidnapped, dumb attempts to retrieve them including woeful disguise. Crazy shit happening on Crystal Star thingy. Luke's lightsaber is blue. More Darth Vader apprentices than one can sneeze at. Waru. Waru!! WARU!!! At least Struzan drew a pretty cover....

This is how Star Wars authors are chosen: The folks at Lucasbooks (or whatever the fuck they call themselves these days) read the works of established Sci-Fi writers and offer the ones they feel wo...more

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Mar 04, 2009 Ari rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: star-wars

This was a really good book. Sometimes its hard to forget that Vader did not kill all jedi, just the good ones. The Solo kids are kidnapped by Hethrir, an evil jedi, who wants to sacrafice Anakin to Waru in-order to increase his, Hethrir's connection to the force. Leia goes after them while Han and Luke go on a mission. Natuarlly at the end all story arcs colide and a great ending. McInryre does a great job of story telling and this book really is a lot of fun.

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Oct 22, 2009 Travis rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: star-wars

Painfully bad on so many levels. Characterization is weak and most of the heroes are written out of character, yet another weak plot device that messes with the force, so Luke is rendered useless and too many overly cute bits with the kids.

Han's youngest sons love for c-3po is cute, but that's not enough to save this train wreck of a book.

Is this the same Vonda McIntyre that wrote those great STar Trek books? What the hell happened to her?

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Jul 06, 2011 Mark rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-was-young-and-dumb-okay, science-fiction, star-wars

I don't remember anything bad about this book. I don't remember anything good about it. It's one of those "lost" EU books - a one-shot or small series that, for whatever reason, was just never quite integrated into any of the bigger, grander plots.

Funny enough, if you're a huge enough nerd to check (and I'm not going to pretend that I am not such a nerd) all such novels take place from 14-17 ABY. Slow news years, I guess.

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Sep 29, 2010 Eric Moreno rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi, spaceopera-my-stories

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 27, 2011 Xion added it

Note this is not the best star wars book.BUt worst ever come on people have you not read truce at bakura and courtship .
To the guy who said it was the longest uh no maybe the shortest Dark force rising (written before crystal star) is 439 pages ,Crystal star is only 260 very very short

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Feb 19, 2009 Walt rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: star-wars

I have read this book at least twice and remember very little.
The bad guys are hard to accept. It is fuzy where their power comes from. It is hard to conceptualize their plans. The Crystal Star is also hard to understand. The whole book is just hard to understand.

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Sep 13, 2011 Elaine rated it 2 of 5 stars

I enjoyed parts of it, but the kids were too cute and it was another 'make Luke unable to do anything so he needs to be rescued' book, so I was not as impressed as I hoped to be. Good thing I got the book quite cheaply at a jumble sale. It will be donated again soon.

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Jan 29, 2011 Daniel Kukwa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: star-wars

It's an excellent science fiction novel...but it's a very cold and uninteresting Star Wars novel. Ms. McIntyre doesn't seem to have the same touch with the George Lucas universe that she has with the Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Recommended only for completists.

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Oct 24, 2012 David Agranoff rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: tie-in-novels, star-wars

I have enjoyed this author's Star Trek novels, So I had high hopes that all the low opinions I heard on this novel were wrong. Nope it's terrible. The plot makes little sense, some scenes take 20 pages that could have been done in five. Snoozer. Awful.

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Jan 05, 2010 Ron rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, science-fiction, star-wars

If not the worst, then one of the worst Star Wars books. Derivative, repetitive plot. (Getting tired of secret dark-side disciples of Palpatine or Vader. What happened to the Rule of Two?)

Cute idea voicing a five year old's POV, but McIntyre should have spent more time with five year olds. She portrayed Jaina as capable of physics beyond many high school graduates.

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Nov 06, 2012 Seth rated it 1 of 5 stars

What a terrible book. This is easily the worst Star Wars novel ever written.

Oh, no! Somebody is trying to ressurect the Empire! And there's a big blue blob from another dimension! The Solo children have been kidnapped!

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Jun 22, 2010 Wesley rated it 1 of 5 stars

Okay, I'm pretty good at understanding weird and bizarre Sci-fi plots, but this one made my head spin. It did not work as a Star Wars novel and though I actually read this book over 12 years ago, I want that lost time back.

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Apr 09, 2010 Richard Houchin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, star-wars, science-fiction

I read a lot of Star Wars novels in Jr. High. It took a few dozen books before I realized many of them just weren't all that stellar. Ah, well, I'll squirrel away the memories on the internet and free up a book shelf.

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Jul 20, 2011 Angela rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I think this was the book that made me hate Star Wars during those brief Dark Years of 1998-2004. But then again, I'm not sure; I read so many terrible Star Wars tie-in novels before 1998 that it's hard to pinpoint which one did it.

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Feb 20, 2013 Keith Bell rated it 3 of 5 stars

An OK story. Despite the mature characters, it strikes me as more of a young adult novel. Could have developed the story a lot more and stopped in areas that would have made it a much better story.

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Jul 30, 2011 Heather Schmidt rated it 5 of 5 stars

I particularly enjoyed this book. Of course, I love anything involving Jaina Solo, and it was great to see the young Solo children dealing with their kidnapping and getting into mischief. ^_^

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Jan 29, 2009 Donsmaniac rated it 1 of 5 stars

Without a doubt the most boring star wars book i have ever read!! and i love star wars. stupid plot that starts with strange and gets wierder. piece of rubbish

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About Vonda N. McIntyre

Vonda Neel McIntyre is a U.S. science fiction author. She is one of the first successful graduates of the Clarion Science fiction writers workshop. She attended the workshop in 1970. By 1973 she had won her first Nebula Award, for the novelette "Of Mist, and Grass and Sand." This later became part of the novel Dreamsnake, which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. The novelette and novel both conc...more

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